“America” the Lyrics, the Context, the Struggle

December 17th, 2011 is a date that states that it is rather “safe” to say that the war in Iraq has “officially ended.” While some say that there was anything between 103 000 and 116 000 civilian deaths, truth be told, it is very likely this figure is a bit more higher. As I write this, GZA’s “Highway Robbery” plays in the background and what is rather interesting is the oil drums and grenades and cashed checks that the Genius mentions in this track is the reality that is occuring in Iraq and the shaping of the Middle-East. Indeed, some may assert that the “Illuminatti bastards” are following their blueprint even as Kim Jong Il is being mourned in North Korea. And of course, the Illuminatti conspiracy of North Korea is another blueprint in itself.

The Mickey Boston track “America” is about America from one hip-hop artist’s point of view. The track was written and compiled in Brooklyn, NY right at the corner of Flatbush and Nostrand. Amongst many walks up and down Flatbush from Avenue B all the way past the botanical gardens and to Atlantic, many thoughts channeled through y mind, especially since these were nightly walks from between midnight and 4am. “America’ was about America and what I was seeing in America and words could not describe the sights of a Brown man with an Arab name in 2005-2006. The track lyrically was revisited in 2010 in order to give it an update and so a five year revisitation within the piece’s words is noteworthy.

Fed up swimming in the ink of my mind’s calligraphy,

Black markets and smuggled electronics,

Super heroes and pornographic comics,

third-world orphans in dire need of phonics.

The opening bars concern the uncertainty, the schizophrenia, the ignorence, the ink in my mind and the ink printed in the NY Times concerning the politics of the era. Reflections of Canal Street swam within my mind’s ink and thoughts of the tragedy overseas were ooming all the while regularly performing at the Nuyorikan.

From Canal Street my mind focused on the aspect of the American dream and the immigrant who starved and sacrificed himself to come to this very l”land of oppertunity.” The minority man comes to open a bodega, arrives to sell electriconics and calling cards to call back home in Africa or South America, the Middle-East and Europe while the tourists roam around photographic every roach they see not understanding everyone here is in a hustle, and yes you knock a man’s hustle esp when he/she is working 7 days/week at 15 hrs/day at $6.50/hour.

Many pundits assert that Halle Burton was a major financier of the war in Iraq. Others assert that Israeli commandos were the first to disarm scuds that were pointed straight at Tel Aviv, can you blame them? From here, a shit-load of pipelines were built and what pride is there in colonialism and imperialism and the theft of another land’s natural resources? I can proudly answer that and say none while this war is being conducted on the backs of the minority troops alongside the poor white American who would sometimes be alluded to by the Senate and Congress elites as “trailer park trashies.” This is the harsh reality and it’d be best a Brown man says it straight alike Ezra Pound or Charles Bukowski would.

So the lobby in America. Wall Street. Hermes ties at the Hermes store on Wall Street just by the Stock Exchange. Interesting to remind you that this track was written in ’05-’06. Occupy Wall Street, autumn 2011, was to come and go. The ambilicle chord is difficult to snip for the infantry man who needs to pay his bills and cover his debt in a difficult America to survive in. Bankers have become untouchables, ask JFK. The satanic masterplan within the hidden stars within the dollar bill and Washington is shaded in darkness and they beleive they are stealth-like but any “madman” of the likes of Charlie Sheen can say 9/11 was an Inside Job and Method Man doesnt have the balls to look into the camera while ODB had to pay with his life for giving it straight.

we sing to the tune of Africa’s unforgotten roots

of race, annihilated by textbooks that negate

reality localized

while viagra and cialis dawn pharmaceutical genocide

and globlalize…

It is a month before 2012, after all that has been done, is anything a surprise anymore? Does one just sit back and watch it happen? Of course, there are countless rumours of this and that, “America the birthpace of AIDS” and not to mention the tales of AIDS being deliberately “inserted” into Africa under the Raegan administration. Rumours are one thing and finding and digging out credible evidence is another. In essence, the power of corporations is surreal and this moves far beyond pharmaceuticals and banks.

America, America:

Beautiful is my name,

Horrific is your Game,

Torn fabric is a stain,

so pour a drink to this indigenous synicist

so we just finish this.

Charles Bukowski once moved to Philedelphia and set his foot in a bar. That night as he sat, there was a scrap and a bottle flew across his face. He loved it and felt at home. He returned to the very same joint the next and the next night and the nights after never to cross the first “magical” night he had at that very same bar. Fifteen years were to pass on his in this bar and nothing ever materialized from that which he sought from that very first night. Pour him a drink but realize he sought an illusion that drank away fifteen good years that may have been better invested.

Post-9/11 what is in a name? What sets an American name apart from an indigenous one? Who is indenous, Walt Whitman? Ezra Pound? How many immigrants do not carry this name. Post-9/11 what is the feeling in America to an “Ahmed,” “Mustapha,” “Abdullah,” “Ali,” or a “Muhammad” and why would he/she have to carry the 9/11 burden while a “Greenberg,” “Cohen,” “King,” “Goldberg,” “Heinz,” “Dubrovski,” “Yzerman,” “Rickaby” or “Greenbaum” have nothing to worry about beyond scholarships and promotions? Star and stripes on a flag where there are stains of inequality as a game of chess is played and pions are pitted in a state of no value.

Ezra Pound and Castro:

screaming on a microphone with the amp on max

import tax

for Chinese racks

and counterfeit macs.

Che Guevera T-shirts printed in “Pakistinian” sweatshops,

so tell me how American is American Eagle?

Mosquito:

bitten, infected with the disease of Bugsy Segal.

My Hebrew:

see through

the flour that baked the conspicuous bread

that left the world unfed

for underground weapons that spread

the bloodshed

so what pads can aborb the blood shed?

enough said.

How American is General Motors? Ezra Pound? Levi’s jeans? What is American industry and where is it going? Clearly some American industries have been outsourced to Asia, be it India or China. Markets are shifted, weapons sales have to sale and over one thousand US bases are found around the world. Bail-outs can only go so far and if one drives along the I-88 things are not as they were. America is changing however, this change is not for the best. Face it, America is more of a polluter for the world than a sustainable super-power. American Eagle merch is actually made in Pakistan. Operation Mosquito is another story in itself. This delves back towards 1981 under Raegan and it would be best if one is personally interested that one delves into it.

The final bars of the track are expressed live at this street performance and will be deconstructed at a later date in an upcoming entry concerning this live street performance.